So what's the point of leaking all these details? For no other reason than to make Obama look good again?

CIA unraveled bomb plot from within

The latest al-Qaeda bomb plot targeting U.S. aircraft was unraveled from inside the terrorist group by operatives &#8212; including a double agent &#8212; working on behalf of the CIA and its counterparts in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, said U.S. and Middle Eastern officials.

The Saudi intelligence service played a particularly important role in penetrating al-Qaeda&#8217;s affiliate in Yemen and recovering the explosive device, according to officials, who described an elaborate espionage operation in which the CIA tracked the bomb&#8217;s movements for weeks and then killed suspected plotters in a drone strike after the device was seized.

The Associated Press has learned the CIA thwarted a plot by al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Senior U.S. officials continued to withhold certain details, including the location and status of the individual &#8212; described by officials as a Saudi informant &#8212; who penetrated the terrorist group posing as a willing suicide bomber and then turned over the device to authorities after leaving Yemen.

But comments by White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan and others made it clear that the involvement of the CIA and its partners went well beyond simply watching the plot unfold.

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The disruption of the threat also indicates that the CIA and other agencies have gained significant traction on their target two years after President Obama began deploying more spies, eavesdropping equipment and armed drones to the Arabian Peninsula.

CIA officials declined to comment on the mission. Other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of intelligence operations

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that information was leaked prematurely regarding a recent foiled bomb plot and suggested the release might have been &#8220;promoted&#8221; for political gain.

&#8220;In this town, in a political season, people need to be a little more cautious &#8212; actually they need to be a lot more cautious &#8212; about how they promote this information at a time when it might not be most beneficial to the Intelligence Committee to do it,&#8221; Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) told CNN.

Rogers said he he&#8217;ll &#8220;be asking some pretty hard questions&#8221; about the timing of the released information, but when asked, refused to confirm his suspicions about the motivation of the alleged leak.

&#8220;I just know that in a political season, funny things happen,&#8221; he added.

U.S. President Barack Obama said last week that the Al-Qaeda was &#8220;on a path to defeat,&#8221; but Seth Jones, a former U.S. Special Operations Command senior adviser, says the evidence he has collected points to the contrary.

Jones recently wrote a book called &#8220;Hunting in the Shadows: The Pursuit of Al Qa'ida Since 9/11&#8221;, in which he draws upon his expertise and thousands of pages of court transcripts, including wiretapped conversations and communications intelligence intercepts, to paint a picture of a terrorist organization that has been transformed, but not defeated.

Jones spoke with the U.S. News website last week about his theory of &#8220;waves&#8221; of violence from Al-Qaeda and what needs to be done to prevent the next cycle.

&#8220;When you look at fatality data, what you see is three major waves of activity,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The first wave really begins around the time of the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998 and crests around September 11 [2001]. And then it comes way down after that. By the invasion of Iraq [in 2003], we begin to see a major increase in Al-Qaeda attacks. And it first starts in Iraq itself, where Al-Qaeda in Iraq is established after the invasion. And then it starts to get reinvigorated overseas&#8212;Bali, Casablanca, Madrid, and a very successful attack in London. The third wave starts around 2008 and into 2009, in particular with Al-Qaeda's successful establishment of a sanctuary in Yemen.&#8221;

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